Find out how the JCB is expanding its digital footprint, read about an upcoming workshop on the Early Modern Caribbean, visit a new online exhibition, meet fellow Tess Clifton, and learn about a spectacular edition of Ptolemy's Geographia.

January 2018

Hear from JCB Director and Librarian Neil Safier about current effrots to digitize the Library's collection and increase engagement with JCB materials across the globe. Watch the interview on GoLocalProv.

Get a sneak preview of some of the Library's signature events for 2018, read about a new postdoctoral fellowship at the JCB, meet current fellow Jaime Marroquín, discover fresh ink from a former fellow, and remember former fellow Osvaldo Pardo.

In our November e-newsletter, view a newly-acquired botanical guide to the flora of Brazil, read our print newsletter inJCB online, learn about fellowship opportunities at the JCB, and watch the Brothers at Arms lecture by Pulitzer Prize Finalist Larrie Ferreiro.

In October's e-newsletter, read about the Fire and Water conference at the JCB, discover fresh ink from former fellow James Delbourgo as well as a new acquisition in the area of maritime history, meet Almeida Family/John M. Monteiro Memorial Fellow Mariana Françozo (Leiden University) and remember a long-time friend and supporter of the Library.

The Library invites friends and Associates to the 2018 Jamboree, highlights the work of Collaborative Cluster Fellows Lisa Voigt and Stephanie Leitch, shares its collection of baroque Mexican sermons, and offers a new acquisition that discusses how to value precious metal in seventeenth-century Peru.

oi image

August 2017

Call for Papers: Trans-American Crossings: Enslaved Migrations within the Americas and their impacts on slave cultures and societies

The John Carter Brown Library, in conjunction with the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, will hold a conference exploring enslaved migrations within the Americas on June 1-3, 2018. “Trans-American Crossings” invites scholars to reassess important questions about the Atlantic slave trade and the African diaspora, with a particular emphasis on how enslaved people arrived in various American locales (whether directly or indirectly from Africa) and how that shaped cultural formations, the lived experiences of the enslaved, merchants networks, and policies governing slavery.

Proposals for papers or other formats of presentation must be received electronically no later than October 16, 2017. For information about the conference and instructions for submission, please click here.

This month, the JCB welcomes its 1,000th research fellow, installs a collectively curated exhibition on Global Americana, and shares a new article contesting "white slavery" in the Caribbean from former fellow Jerome S. Handler and JCB affiliate Matthew C. Reilly. We also look forward to "Fire and Water: Entangled Histories of Empire and Science in the Early Modern Americas," a conference at the JCB this September that will interrogate the role of science in the Americas and, in particular, the ongoing dialogue between Iberian and northern European traditions.

The John Carter Brown Library invites graduate students and early career scholars to submit proposals for papers to be presented at a three-day conference entitled “Fire and Water: Entangled Histories of Empire and Science in the Early Modern Americas,” to take place on the campus of Brown University from September 21-23, 2017. Please send proposals of 300 words for papers of 15 minutes in length as well as a brief CV to jcb-director@brown.edu by August 1, 2017.

The Library shares highlights from this summer, including a partnership with the Lincoln School in Providence and an exhibit opening in August called Global Americana. In the July issue, meet the Library's 2017-2018 fellows, learn about Helen Watson Buckner Fellow Julia Sarreal's project on yerba mate, and read former JCB Association Fellow Chris Parsons's article on early French explorers' experience of northeastern North American environments.

The JCB is very pleased to announce the long- and short-term fellows for 2017-2018, as well as the recipients of the Collaborative Cluster Fellowships and the new Digital Fellowship for Former Fellows. We are eager to see what our fellows discover in the JCB collections and we are grateful to the individual and foundation donors who make the Library's fellowship program possible.

This month, the JCB highlights a visiting class seeking Greek classics, announces the appointment of two outstanding scholar-curators, and explores the Caribbean origins and contemporary portrayal of Alexander Hamilton in a new exhibition titled, "So What'd I Miss?".

The JCB celebrates its 10,000 digitized book, honors Curator of European Books emeritus Dennis Landis for nearly four decades of dedication to the Library, and unveils The Americas on Fire, the third of four exhibitions focusing on the early environmental history of the Americas. Revisit Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara's lecture on the business of slavery in Rhode Island and learn how a grant from the Champlin Foundations will help us steward the Library's collections for the next fifty years.

We are pleased to share JCB news, spotlight our collections, feature the work of our fellows, and introduce you to some of the people who make the work of the JCB possible. Learn about JCB Director and Librarian Neil Safier's wintersession course, new publications from former fellows, and the JCB's supporters and friends. Thank you for being part of the Library's extended community!

March 2017Supporting the Humanities

JCB Director and Librarian Neil Safier has signed an open letter in support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commissionalong with other directors whose institutions are members of the Independent Research Libraries Association.

The JCB was given a grant for "Exploring the Four Elements:Toward a Digital Environmental History of the Americas." Given for the development of a series of online and onsite exhibits examining the ways that the ecological elements of earth, air, fire, and water were interpreted by the inhabitants of the early Americas.

This exhibition marks the 250th anniversary of Great Britain's issuance of the Stamp Act, a law that required most printed materials in North America to be printed on paper bearing a revenue stamp. The justification for this tax was to pay for the quartering of English troops in America following the end of the Seven Years’ War. The law ignited a pamphlet war on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition also highlights two bibliographies compiled by Thomas R. Adams, Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library from 1957 to 1983, on the pamphlets of the American Revolution.

As the inaugural event of a project entitled 'Exploring the Four Elements,' this exhibition showcases the John Carter Brown Library's collection of texts, illustrations, and maps that open a window onto the quest for metals below the surface of the earth in the colonial Americas.

The symposium, commemorating the 475th anniversary of the introduction of the printing press in America, was introduced by a lecture given by Roger Chartier, Collège de France / University of Pennsylvania. "The Seven Lives of Las Casas' Brevísima Relación (1552-1822)."

October 2014NEW EXHIBITION—Printers' Devils :: Printers' Delights

This exhibition draws on the John Carter Brown Library's unparalleled collection of Spanish American imprints to celebrate the 475th anniversary of the introduction of printing to the Americas.

Included the screening of the film, Oil & Water, a lecture by Ned Blackhawk, Yale University, on "The Rediscovery of America: American Indians and the Remaking of U. S. History," and a roundtable.

May 9, 2014Annual MeetingJohn Demos

Professor Demos spoke about his newest book, The Heathen School, which chronicles an experiment in diversity in Connecticut—a school for heathen youth from all parts of the world for the seventy-first Annual Meeting of the Associates of the John Carter Brown Library.

April 2014NEW EXHIBITION—Off to College: Higher Education in the Americas, 1551-1825

To join in the celebration of the 250th anniversity of the founding of Brown University, the library presents education in the Americas and examines the differences and similarities between institutions of higher learning there.

Beginning on April 22, 2014Inaugural Lecture in the series: 1764: Brown's Founding in a Global Age

Joyce Chaplin spoke on "The World is Not Enough: Brown circa 1762 (and circa 2014), "the first of seven lectures in the series, "1764: Brown's Founding in a Global Context." Visit brown1764.org, for more information.

February 9-11, 2014Early Oceanic Histories

A new intiative in environmental studies at the John Carter Brown Library. Screening of the film, Leviathan, in Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center with a Q & A with the director, Lucien Castaign-Taylor. The Sonia Galletti Lecture with Jeffrey Bolster speaking on The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail. American Oecologies: A Roundtable on Environmental History.

February 2014NEW EXHIBITION—The Other Revolution: Haiti, 1789-1804

This new exhibition explores the Haitian Revolution, the least understood of the three great democratic revolutions that transformed the Atlantic world in the late eighteenth century. This exhibition--for the first time the books included in the exhibition may be read in their entirety online--provides a running narrative of the Haitian Revolution.

October 25-26, 2013Conference on Sugar in the Early Atlantic World

Beyond SweetnessA conference—in conjunction with the Library’s Fall 2013 exhibition on sugar in the early modern period—on new histories of sugar in the early Atlantic world. Please go to the conference website for program.

September 28, 2013Rhode Island Center for the Book

RI Center for the Book celebrates the books intended for young minds and eyes. The Keynote Lecture by Laura E Wasowicz, Curator of Children's LIterature at the American Antiquarian Society, will speak on “Vivid Imaginations: the History of the McLoughlin Bros.” Kim Nusco, Reference Librarian, put together a mini-exhibition to welcome the Rhode Island Center for the Book.

September 15, 2013NEW EXHIBITION—Sugar and the Visual Imagination in the Atlantic World, circa 1600-1860

The Library’s newest exhibition focuses on the visual imagery of sugar in the Americas, examining how this sweet, powerful, and often destructive commodity was depicted in books, single sheet prints, and maps that are in the collection of the John Carter Brown Library.

July 29, 2013JCB on C-SPAN

Watch as panelists from the John Carter Brown Library, David Parsons and Susan Danforth, talk about a map made in 1507 by German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller. It is considered one of the world’s rarest maps and believed to be the first map to name America. This program was part of an event hosted by the Library of Congress and the John Carter Brown Library.

July 11, 2013Maps and Monsters

JCB Invited Research scholar, Chet van Duzer, has a newly-released book, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps. It was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. See review here.

June 15, 2013 Neil Safier Named New Director and Librarian

Neil Safier, currently associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia, has been appointed director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Safier will begin his new duties at the John Carter Brown Library in October 2013, succeeding Edward Widmer, who directed the library from 2006 to 2012.

May 13, 2013JCB Celebrates the Upload of 5,000th Book on Internet Archive

THE JOHN CARTER BROWN LIBRARY uploaded our first contribution to the Internet Archive in 2010 initiating our collaboration with that non-profit digital library. That book was contributed in early March 2010. Just over three years later, on 13 May 2013, we uploaded our 5,000th book. Within this short timeframe the Library has made over 10% of its rare materials freely available online to users around the world, and the digitization of the JCB collection continues apace.